But enough to maintain the lead. You have a few swoopers on your tail now though. ;)
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According to ARU there are 130 players O/S. The argument in reducing from 5 to 4 teams is lost on me. ARU also mentioned they expect a larger drain as English rugby are going to lift the salary cap.
As Alan Jones said " the product is flawed" ... There appears to be no plan to retain layers here.
Hansie/anyone do you have any insights into why NZ seems to be able to keep their players at home but we can't.
To my mind this is the biggest issue for Australian rugby but it isn't being talked about. If we had the best ten aussie players in each position playing super rugby and we were struggling I could see the argument for one less team. But we don't. The part that really gets me is that when a really good super rugby player that isn't a wallaby (think Luke Jones, Liam Gill, Keiran Longbottom) leaves the overall reaction is oh well, to bad. Rather then the disaster it is. For some reason only retaining a wallaby is important. Neglecting the fact that if the super teams standard drops so to will the standard of the wallabies.
Yeah, for a country with such a small population, and therefore supposedly a lack of ability to raise funds to compete with the Euro, how exactly does NZ do it? Is it because most of their development systems are self-funded and not being constantly under pressure from big investment from the FFA, AFL and RL like here in Australia? Is a lot of our money being used to simply survive, whereas in NZ they don't have that problem?
Been watching a lot of the South African high school stuff, looks like they wouldn't need top-down funding either.
Respect for the back Jersey is one thought that comes to mind how the Kiwis keep their players.... Ritchiecould have gone anywhere and chose to stay together with many of the "key" players.. they are brought up from babes in arm to aspire to the black jersey..and I just love the passion...
I think you may find there are a bucket load of kiwis playing over seas too. Far more than our Aussies
Put simply. I revkon it's the aura of the AB's in the NZ psyche. You can't imitate it. There's over 100 years' tradition supporting. A good indicator of that tradition is the high value still placed on the "Log of Wood' in the NPC. It just is what it is.
I reckon it's a combo of the aura of the black jersey, a reverence of the game of rugby by the entire nation and the lack of any rival sporting code to take away the sporting $ from rugby.
Much as I hate the swagger and arrogance that can go with it, I have to admire what NZ has done for the game and how sublime their skill is in playing it. Credit where credit's due.
I'm not going back to count just now, but would be easily double, if not triple. Likewise South Africans, probably just double.
In the pre-Force version I think there was about 120 total SANZAR overseas that I counted, long ago memories now though, so could be wrong.
The part of the argument that I find incomprehensible is how dropping a team will suddenly make the other 4 competitive with the kiwi sides. From what I have seen if you selected the wallabies today, and based on current form, the Hurricanes would tear them a new one (as would the Crusaders and probably the chiefs as well).
Shrink your way to success? Sheer lunacy...